The European Union members were still divided over a plan to set a mandatory target for increasing use of renewable energy across the bloc on Tuesday, two days before an EU summit.

To promote renewable energy is high on the agenda as the EU leaders are ready to kick off their two-day summit on Thursday, which is focused on energy policy and climate change.

The European Commission made an ambitious proposal in January to set a target for the EU to achieve a 20 percent share of renewables in the bloc's energy mix by 2020. The EU executive arm had intended to make the target legally binding on member states.

Ahead of the EU summit, which has the final saying in the issue, the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso insisted on Tuesday that the target must be mandatory.

"This target should be binding, for the success and credibility of our policy," said Barroso, who is supported by Germany.

But one day earlier, EU foreign ministers failed again to agree on the 20 percent mandatory target, leaving the problem to be resolved during the summit.

It was reported that the main opposition came from France, Poland, Finland, Luxembourg and Bulgaria with others also warning against imposing unreachable goals on governments.
 
France, whose electricity needs are mainly satisfied by nuclear power, has insisted on the inclusion of nuclear energy into the targets scheme of so-called "non-carbon" energy instead of renewables.

The EU energy ministers were also unable to reach a consensus on a mandatory target in their meeting last month.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2007)